Z Nation

Z Nation
Genre	Action, horror, black comedy, parody
Created by	Karl Schaefer Craig Engler
Starring	Kellita Smith DJ Qualls Michael Welch Keith Allan Anastasia Baranova Russell Hodgkinson Pisay Pao Nat Zang Tom Everett Scott Harold Perrineau
Opening theme	"Have Mercy"
Composer	Jason Gallagher
Country of origin	United States
Original language	English
No. of seasons	1
No. of episodes	13
Production
Executive producers	Paul Bales David Michael Latt David Rimawi Karl Schaefer
Producer	Karl Schaefer
Production locations	Spokane, Washington Eastern Washington
Cinematography	Alexander Yellen
Editors	Anders Hoffmann Fred Beahm Erik C. Andersen
Running time	44 minutes
Production companies	The Asylum Go2 Digital Media North By Northwest
Original release
Network	Syfy
Release	September 12, 2014 (2014-09-12) – present

Z Nation is an American post-apocalyptic zombie drama television series that airs on Syfy. It was created by Karl Schaefer and Craig Engler and the production company is The Asylum. The first season, which consisted of 13 episodes, premiered on September 12, 2014. Z Nation is filmed in the Spokane, Washington area. The series was renewed for a second season that will air in 2015.

Premise

Before the events of the series, a zombie virus has devastated the world, leaving few humans remaining. Three years into the apocalypse, a group must transport Murphy, the only known immune survivor, 2,438 miles from New York to California, to the last known functioning research lab. His blood contains antibodies that are the world's last, best hope for a vaccine. However, he harbors a dark secret that threatens them all.

Cast

Main cast

• Kellita Smith as Roberta Warren: A member of the National Guard living at a camp in upstate New York before taking on the task of transporting Murphy.
• DJ Qualls as Pfc. Simon Cruller aka "Citizen Z": Working at the Northern Lights NSA outpost he is its sole surviving employee and uses his high-tech equipment to assist the westward-bound group in its journey.
• Michael Welch as Mack Thompson: A wanderer traveling with Addy who is a member of the Blue Sky camp in New York.
• Keith Allan as Alvin Bernard Murphy aka "Patient Zero": A resentful and frail former convict who became the only known survivor of zombie bites after being part of a scientific experiment. The group is tasked with transporting him to a government laboratory in California, as he might be the sole solution to the ZN1 virus.
• Anastasia Baranova as Addison "Addy" Carver: A wanderer traveling with Mack who is a member of the Blue Sky camp in New York.
• Russell Hodgkinson as Steven "Doc" Beck: While not a real doctor, the senior member of the group carries a supply of medicine and is creative enough to use it as the de facto medic of the group.
• Pisay Pao as Cassandra: A young woman found at a rendezvous station near Philadelphia, secretive of her past before joining the group.
• Nat Zang as Tommy "10K": A young man highly proficient with firearms and other projectiles. His personal goal is to kill 10,000 zombies, hence his nickname.
• Tom Everett Scott as Sgt. Charles Garnett: A member of the National Guard living at a camp in upstate New York before taking on the task of transporting Murphy.
• Harold Perrineau as Lt. Mark Hammond: The last surviving member of the Delta Force team transferring Patient Zero to a laboratory in California. Despite being credited as a main cast member, outside of the opening sequence, Perrineau only appears in the first episode.

Guests

• Rick Rivera as Tobias Campbell
• Yuji Okumoto as Bernt
• Kelly McGillis as Helen
• Bill Moseley as General McCandles
• Donald Corren as Dr. Kurian

Production

Z Nation is produced by The Asylum. On June 29, 2014, it was announced that the filming of 13 episodes for the first season of the series was underway. On October 12, 2014, Syfy announced that it had ordered a second season of Z Nation. Schaefer and Engler have described Z Nation as an attempt to "put the fun back into zombies", criticizing shows like The Walking Dead for being too serious. Z Nation's first season had a budget of less than $700,000 per episode.

Episodes

No.	Title	Directed by	Written by	Original air date	U.S. viewers (million)
1	"Puppies and Kittens"	John Hyams	Karl Schaefer	September 12, 2014 (2014-09-12)	1.58
Hammond and Murphy make their way to Camp Blue Sky en route to a high school in Sleepy Hollow, New York, where they expect to be airlifted to Mt. Wilson Laboratory in Los Angeles. Meanwhile, Citizen Z is the sole occupant of an NSA outpost in the Arctic after the rest of the crew is killed during a botched evacuation. Hammond and Murphy link up with several other survivors after Blue Sky is overrun. The high school is abandoned, and the only survivors appear to be a baby and a mysterious stranger, Cassandra. The baby unexpectly turns into a zombie and kills Hammond. The group then encounters another mysterious survivor, later revealed to be 10K.
2	"Fracking Zombies"	John Hyams	Michael Cassutt	September 19, 2014 (2014-09-19)	1.62
The group attempts to refuel their vehicles at the "Jersey Devil Refinery" in northern New Jersey. They use a music box to distract the zombies.
3	"Philly Feast"	Luis Prieto	Eric Wallace and Karl Schafer	September 26, 2014 (2014-09-26)	1.14
In Philadelphia, the team meets the group that Cassandra has been trying to escape from. Cassandra reveals that she was previously part of a cannibalistic cult, acting as a prostitute to lure people so that the cannibal group could kidnap them and eat them. This group, led by a man named Tobias Campbell, wants Cassandra back.
4	"Full Metal Zombie"	Michael Robison	Eric Bernt	October 3, 2014 (2014-10-03)	1.55
Citizen Z informs the team that General McCandless in McLean, Virginia may be able to give them an airlift directly to California. The survivors fight a large zombie soldier with a metal plate in his head, rendering him immune to head-shots. The general ends up being insane and his helicopter is no longer able to fly.
5	"Home Sweet Zombie"	Luis Prieto	Dan Merchant	October 10, 2014 (2014-10-10)	1.26
The team goes to Warren's hometown of Castle Point, Missouri (mistakenly listed as in Illinois), as Warren tries to find closure about her husband Antoine. Meanwhile, a zombie tornado threatens the entire mission.
6	"Resurrection Z"	John Hyams	Craig Engler	October 17, 2014 (2014-10-17)	1.57
The group arrives in Hannibal, Missouri and takes shelter in a base led by Garnett's former squadmate, Joe Williams. A cult led by a man named Jacob has been indoctrinating people to do their deeds. Several cult members manage to infiltrate the base by returning and pretending that they've renounced the cult. As zombies and Joshua's people overrun the compound, Garnett is killed by Jacob while blocking a bullet for Murphy. A Nexium commercial featuring Keith Allan (Murphy) was run during the original broadcast of the episode and again in several later episodes.
7	"Welcome to the Fu-Bar"	Abram Cox	Jennifer Derwingson	October 24, 2014 (2014-10-24)	1.34
In western Kansas, the team stops at a saloon called the Fu-Bar, just as a giant zombie herd heads into town. Mack and Addy get separated, but choose to head off on their own. Meanwhile, a traveling salesmen they re-encounter from episode 1 holds a zombie shooting contest, which 10K enthusiastically enters. He wins the contest and the prize, a Barrett M82, but decides to give it to Brittany, the girl who came in second. Murphy discovers that his saliva renders a normal human immune to the zombie virus when he bites a man in a fight who is later killed and does not reanimate.
8	"Zunami"	John Hyams	Dan Merchant	October 31, 2014 (2014-10-31)	1.10
The group is forced to hunker down in a Nebraska town as the zombie tsunami comes in. Citizen Z encounters a Soviet cosmonaut, who seems to be at Northern Lights for a purpose. This cosmonaut is revealed to be a figment of his oxygen-deprived imagination who is trying to warn Citizen Z about the failing air supply.
9	"Die, Zombie, Die... Again"	Tim Andrew	Dan Merchant & Karl Schaefer	November 7, 2014 (2014-11-07)	1.30
Mack and Addy debate abandoning the rest of the group and the mission. Mack believes that a zombie has killed Addy at their campsite, but every time, he wakes up from a nightmare in a manner reminiscent of Groundhog Day. All of these repeating episodes turn out to be a dream that Addy was having, and she realizes that the flashbacks she has been experiencing are a repressed memory of killing her mother.
10	"Going Nuclear"	Nick Lyon	Craig Engler & Michael Cassutt	November 14, 2014 (2014-11-14)	1.49
The group takes a detour through South Dakota to avoid the zombie tsunami. In Edgemont, a nuclear reactor is about to melt down, an occurrence that Amelia and her father are desperately trying to thwart. When the father is killed, their only resort is to turn to another former worker, Homer Stubbins, who has isolated himself in his fortress since his son was killed at the onset of the outbreak. Amelia agrees to fly Murphy out of the fallout zone should the reactor melt down. Murphy learns he can influence the actions of zombies.
11	"Sisters of Mercy"	Rachel Goldenberg	Jennifer Derwingson	November 21, 2014 (2014-11-21)	1.40
Mack and Addy reunite with the rest of the group. They encounter an all-female commune whose leader, Helen, agrees to shelter only the three women of the group, as she believes that all men are evil. They discover that when the commune's boys turn 13, they are forced to leave. A man who abused his wife is thrown into a barn to be eaten by a zombie bear.
12	"Murphy's Law"	Tim Andrew	Michael Cassutt	November 28, 2014 (2014-11-28)	1.61
Murphy is kidnapped by three survivors: Zimmerman, Janis and Henry. They drive to a zombie-infested Mesa Pharmaceuticals warehouse, where they plan to use Murphy's immunity to help them steal drugs. Murphy discovers that he has mind control abilities, which he uses by spitting in his abductors' canteens.
13	"Doctor of the Dead"	John Hyams	John Hyams & Karl Schaefer	December 5, 2014 (2014-12-05)	1.44
In a series of pre-apocalypse flashbacks, a man is shown extracting brain matter from a Krokodil addict, a Liberian Ebola patient, a Haitian voodoo zombie, and an inspector at the Soviet bio-weapons facility at Semipalantinsk. The group expects to meet Dr. Merch at a facility in Fort Collins, Colorado, but arrives to find the personnel have been killed. They discover that this lab is where the virus was first transmitted from monkeys to humans. The man from the flashback arrives instead of Dr. Merch, and explains that he will take Murphy the rest of the way to California. Murphy gives mercy to patient zero, a lab technician who has been an inanimate zombie hybrid for three years. The season ends with a cliffhanger, as Murphy's exit from the containment lab without proper decontamination triggers the launch of tactical nuclear weapons, shown headed for the lab as well as the NSA site where Citizen Z operates from.

Reception

The first season of Z Nation has received mixed reviews from professional television critics. Its aggregate score on Metacritic is 48 on scale of 0 to 100. The Rotten Tomatoes Critics Consensus gave the show a rating of 53%, admitting that "although it's hampered by an overcrowded narrative, Z Nation manages to muster up some fun scares without taking itself too seriously." Chris Carabott of IGN noted that the show "continues to set itself apart in campy and inventive ways." In January 2015 Graeme Virtue of The Guardian called Z Nation a "brazen Walking Dead rip-off" and included it on a list of five great US TV shows unavailable in Britain.

In its first season, Z Nation averaged 1.42 million viewers per episode, including 480,000 in the 18- to 49-year-old demographic.

The series' premiere episode was the subject of a large number of unlicensed downloads shortly after it first aired.

International Broadcast

Z Nation is distributed internationally by Dynamic Television.

Home release

Season 1 was released February 10, 2015 on DVD over Syfy in association with Universal Studios.

The series is also available to view on Netflix in the USA, Canada, Mexico, Peru and Brazil

External links

• Z Nation at IMDb
• Official website